1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for restoring battery data in a portable appliance which can restore damaged internal data of a battery used in the portable appliance, thereby making the battery be normally usable.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, battery chargers operate to appropriately transform commercial voltage into a desired voltage, and to apply the transformed voltage to a battery, thereby charging the battery. FIG. 1 illustrates the configuration of a battery charging system employed in a general portable appliance. As shown in FIG. 1, the battery charging system includes a battery management module 20 for storing data about a battery 10 in a memory 21 to manage the battery data. The battery data is set in manufacturing the battery 10.
The battery data is reference data associated with voltage, current and capacity. The battery management module 20 stores the reference data of the battery 10 in the form of a temperature-based table in the memory 21 which may be an EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable ROM). The battery management module 20 also periodically measures the temperature, voltage and current of the battery 10, and sends the measured values, as battery data, to a host 30 in a serial communication manner.
The battery management module 20 is provided with a P-MOSFET (Metallic Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor). The battery management module 20 controls the P-MOSFET, thereby controlling a charging operation according to a desired charge voltage.
The host 30 receives the battery data from the battery management module 20, and utilizes the received battery data to control the battery charging system.
In the above-mentioned general battery charging system, however, there are various problems. That is, when reference signals sent from the host 30 to the battery management module 20 are distorted, or physical impact is applied to the battery 10 or battery management module 20, the reference battery data stored in the memory 21 equipped in the battery management module 20 may be damaged. Such damaged reference battery data may cause an abnormal battery charging operation. Furthermore, the measured data to be sent to the host 30 may be damaged. As a result, the system operates abnormally, thereby causing degradation in the performance of the host 30.